Heavy Rains In El Niño Causing Severe Threat To Coastal Hills In Pacifica

Coastal Cliffs in Pacifica are under threat due to heavy rains in El Niño 

El Niño rains and crashing waves causing serious threat to Pacifica area

Palmetto Avenue and Esplanade Avenue cliffs getting eroded at a faster pace

Coastal hills in Pacifica are in danger. This is due to the severe waves and prevailing rains from El Niño. The big question arising out of this danger is how to save erosion in Pacifica area. Many residential buildings are in a vacated and wobbling condition for last few years. An emergency has been declared in the city last week. It clearly states the deteriorating conditions there. The impact of severe waves and prevailing rains from El Niño is quite serious and of high risk. There has to be a clear cut mitigation plan to save it out of the damaging conditions.

Photo credit: Scott Beale via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

The erosion has incremented further with severe intensity towards the hills that lie along Palmetto Avenue and Esplanade Avenue. There have been reported cases of few residential buildings being evacuated due to the rising impact in the area at quite a higher pace.This is not the first incident of evacuation. It has been happening now for some time. The fear factor is increasing and the impact of that is quite visible with an increasing number of evacuations. At the same pace, the getting vacated. Six years back in 2010, a large number of residential buildings were abandoned. This happened because during 2003 there were severe storms when heavy storms that started shaving off large portions of the cliffs there. The place has been in a restless condition for a long period.

The same is happening around the adjoining areas of the cliffs. The coastline has been hit badly by heavy storms and tornadoes in last two weeks. These cliffs are mainly of elusive sandstone. This is a great artwork done by nature as these cliffs evolved automatically by the heaping rocks on the beach. There is a maximum effort being done by the local authorities to preserve this beautiful work of nature. Supportive rods are being drilled into the sides of these cliffs so as to provide them extra strength to face the severity of heavy rains and rising waves. Even the cliff faces are being armored by concrete coverings.

 The continuous erosion of cliffs is really a point of worry. It is a seriously high risk. On one hand there is a great artwork of nature. On the other hand, it is the same nature that is creating a big threat to this artwork due to heavy rains. In fact, it is a silent war happening between creative and destructive faces of nature. Heavy rains and erosive landslides are of a major concern. The landslides that are happening from El Niño are impacting California coastal belt. The impact is getting a manifold for the apartments on Esplanade. The residential blocks are being threatened heavily due to large waves that are crashing below with a very high intensity. 

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